Nina Mirnig (born 1982) received her BA (2004), M.St. (2005) and D.Phil. (2010) in Oriental Studies/Sanskrit from Oxford University. Her research interests include the development and history of early Śaivism and its literary traditions (in particular early Śaiva tantras and manuals as well as the Sivadharma corpus), the formation of Śaiva devotional practices (e.g. the worship of the Śivaliṅga) as well as rituals and beliefs concerning death and afterlife in Hinduism. Further, she focuses on the study of epigraphical material as a source for religio-political and cultural history, with special focus on Nepalese inscriptions of the Licchavi period, as well as the cultural history of early medieval Nepal.

Nina Mirnig joined the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia in June 2014 as a member of the FWF project Visions of Community. Since July 2015, she works on the FWF project "The Śivaliṅga Cult on the Eve of the Tantric Age: A Study and Critical Edition of the Śivadharmaśāstra's Chapters 1-5 and 7-9".

Since 2014, Mirnig has been cooperating with a team of archaeologists under the direction of Prof. Robin Coningham (UNESCO Chair, Durham University) on developing interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the early cultural layers of the Kathmandu Valley.

Publications

Monographs

Liberating the Liberated: Tantric Death Rites in Early Śaivism. Submitted to the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.

“Adapting Śaiva Tantric Initiation for Exoteric Circles: The Case of the Lokadharmiṇī Dīkṣā and its History in Early Medieval Sources“, in Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions: Essays in Honour of Alexis Sanderson, (eds) Dominic Goodall, Shaman Hatley, Harunaga Isaacson, Srilata Raman. Leiden: Brill. (forthcoming).

“Glimpses into the Past through Inscriptions: The Ancient History of Nepal’s National Shrine Pashupatinath”, The Britain-Nepal Society Journal 41 (2017 edition, in print).

“Umā and Śiva's Playful Talks in Detail (Lalitavistara): On the Production of Śaiva Works and their Manuscripts in Medieval Nepal”; together with Florinda De Simini. In The South Asian Manuscript Book. Material, Textual and Historical Investigations, (eds) V. Vergiani, D. Cuneo and C.A. Formigatti. De Gruyter: Berlin. (2017)

“Favoured by the Venerable Lord Paśupati. Tracing the Rise of a new Tutelary Deity in Epigraphic Expressions of Power in Early Medieval Nepal,” in the Indo-Iranian Journal, Volume 53, 3/4, Brill. (2013)

“Śaiva Siddhānta Śrāddha. Towards an Evaluation of its Performance in the Early Medieval Period,” in Puṣpikā. Tracing Ancient India Through Texts and Tradition. Contributions to Current Research in Indology. Oxbow Books, Oxford. (2013)